Tender
by lovable hate
Summary: "Through the gap in the curtain shone a strip of golden, dusky light along her willowy body, causing the tiny blonde hairs on the back of her neck to glisten like gold". Spencer is ready to talk to Toby about what happened to her in the dollhouse. Missing scene from 6a.


**Angsty one shot about Spencer opening up about the dollhouse. Title based on my favourite song of all time, Tender by Blur. You should go and listen to it. Please review, it really means a lot to me. I don't own either the show or the song.**

 _Tender is the night  
Lying by your side  
Tender is the touch  
Of someone that you love too much  
Tender is the day  
The demons go away  
Lord I need to find  
Someone who can heal my mind_

She was so strong. It simultaneously fascinated and scared Toby to see her exhibiting such a display of resilience in her strong chin and steely eyes. She was at her best when she was working on something, whether it be school related or –A investigations. He could see her eyes dancing in excitement when uncovering information, or running after new leads. It was only when she stopped to breathe that her mind would begin to wander. Back to that place. She would become smaller somehow, folding into herself. Her eyes glazed over and her flawless complexion faded into pallor. Yet she remained silent, refusing to talk about the demons she had bought back to Rosewood with her.

The other girls didn't notice, of course. They were too busy dealing with their own wild feelings that being stuck in that place had bought up. Yet she remained strong for all of them, practically holding up the other girls as they fell from one emotional crisis to the next. Her irrepressible façade never dipped for an instant, at least not in public. She remained a rock, eternally enduring and never yielding.

Until now.

Now, lying in Toby's arms, her naked body pressed against his heaving chest and her panting breaths tickling against his neck she allowed her fragility to show. It was as if her stubborn front dissolved away with her clothes as she slipped beneath the covers with him. She revealed herself to him both physically and emotionally as she moved against him, and he was only too willing to listen. It was the same routine each time; the night ended with her curled against him and her slender legs tangled between his. His muscular arms replaced her veneer as the shield between her and the outer world.

Toby twisted a strand of her dark hair around his finger and watched it fall back onto her flushed cheek. Her eyes moved slightly in response to the movement, but her head remained resting on his shoulder. Through the gap in the curtain shone a strip of golden, dusky light along her willowy body, causing the tiny blonde hairs on the back of her neck to glisten like gold. He watched them rise slightly as he ran a finger along the curve of her waist and over her hip. Something in her eyes changed as she felt his hand trace against her bare skin, and before she had time to think she spoke.

"When –A hijacked the van I thought they were going to shoot us." Toby felt the vibrations of her words against his side; he froze. This was the first time she'd willingly talked about what had happened to her. Her eyes dipped, as if in shame and she spoke slowly. "At that moment, I thought that was it. We were going to be gunned down against the wall like prisoners in the Second World War." She felt his arm tighten, pulling her exposed flesh closer to his. The contact comforted her. "But -A just gassed us."

Toby remained silent. He was desperate to keep her talking, but was scared that if he made any attempt to comment she could completely clam up again. His hand moved from her hip to intertwine with her fingers. He lifted their interwoven hands to the light, studying her perfectly formed digits and how well they seemed to fit with his. Spencer's hand tightened around his, as if to anchor herself to the moment. Her pupils were moving rapidly, clearly reliving horrors from her three weeks in the dollhouse.

"There was so much blood." Spencer's words escaped as her mouth as a choke. "I-I woke up and it was on me and I-I thought I'd hurt somebody."

"But you didn't." He whispered the words, as if speaking to a cornered animal it was vital not to spook. "You never would, Spence."

"It was on the carpet," she spoke as if in a trance. "And it was on my hands." Her grip slipped from Toby's and her hand fell weakly onto the mattress, panic rising in her tone. "And it wouldn't come off." Sobs shuddered through her body, and she buried her face deeper into his shoulder. He pulled her fully on top of him and held her as she wailed like an anguished child. All the grief, trauma and suffering flooded from her body as her cries pierced the otherwise silence of the room. He didn't know how long he held her, it could have been minutes or hours he just didn't know. Eventually, Spencer sucked in a deep breath and steadied herself. "I'm s-"

"Don't. Don't ever say that." Toby ran his thumb under her eyes, collecting beads of salty tears. "I want you to keep talking to me, babe. Hell, I want you to carry on crying on me if it means you're telling me how you feel." Her shaking hand slid around his wrist.

"-A made us play games." The words were tumbling out now. "He, she made me choose between the girls. Choose which one to save. And there was this… this buzzer that sounded every time I managed to get some sleep. It was so loud, Toby. I couldn't hear myself think, I thought I was losing my mind. Sometimes, I'm pretty sure I did lose it, I mean it wouldn't be the first time." His forehead creased at the reference to her stint in Radley, and guilt panged through him. She sighed, a defeated heart breaking sigh as all her soul and energy suddenly drained from her form.

"I'm tired, Toby," she whispered, her head dropping back into his chest. "I want to give up and just sleep. But I can't."

"Sometimes it's okay to give up for a little while." He gently lifted her face up with a finger beneath her chin, and rested his forehead against hers. Her nose slid against his, and she closed her eyes briefly. "It's okay to step down from looking out for the other girls, and look after yourself instead." Spencer opened her mouth in protest- he halted her with a chaste kiss against her lips. "It's okay," he repeated into her mouth. He reached up, grabbing a fistful of the sheet that was tangled in a ball at the end of the bed and pulled it over them. Her body slackened a little and she fell against him again. Toby could feel her shallow breaths quivering through her slender figure. How did she so successfully guise her delicacy? He knew it was only he that was allowed to see her in this state, but it seemed incomprehensible to him that others were unable to see past her pretence of invisibility to the broken girl lying against his body now.

"The other girls need me to stay focused," she mumbled. "I need them to think we have a chance of working out who –A is and ending all this."

"That's not your job," he protested, his voice low as he whispered in her ear. "You've been through just as much as them, more. I don't care if you're the _smart_ one or the capable one in the group. Nobody should have to deal with all this."

"Then who will? The police?" He captured the lobe of her ear between his lips.

"I'm the police now Spencer. And you have to know, we never gave up. Not for a single second. I was always looking for you."

"I know."

"I mean it, babe-"

"I know, Tobes." A single tear slid almost gracefully from beneath her eyelid and ran down her cheek onto his chest. "Will you just hold me please." His arms snaked immediately around her body and she focussed on the pressure of his grip. This was real, he was real. The combination of the soothing pound of his heart against her cheek and his strokes against her hair comforted her like a lullaby.

"I love you so much Spencer. You're the bravest, most beautiful person I've ever met and I don't deserve you. And it's okay to drop the Nancy Drew act sometimes, babe. Even just here, in this bed."

"Do you think I'll ever be able to sleep again?" The tremble in her voice betrayed her vulnerability. He nodded firmly.

"Yes, you will. I promise." She hesitated.

"I think I believe you." He rested his chin on her head tenderly, wrapping the sheet tighter around her. Looking at her now, trembling and exposed in his arms she still radiated strength. There was an inextinguishable light within her, a fierce defiance that –A would never be able to supress. And so long as she always had that, and they always had each other, Toby knew that –A would never win.

 _Come on, Come on, Come on  
Get through it  
Come on, Come on, Come on  
Love's the greatest thing  
That we have_


End file.
